Belgian Waterland backed Intracto acquires GUC Agency

Brian Hirman, CEO of GUC Agency: “Pieter and I immediately felt that we complement each other perfectly. GUC Agency itself is the result of several strategic acquisitions as we believe that nowadays it’s hard to build up expertise in new areas. Acquisitions immediately put you at the desired level of expertise, which would take much longer if developed in-house. We were looking for a strategic partner in order to broaden our service offering towards our customers and with Intracto, we’ve found the right partner. We share their idea of creating knowledge campuses in strategic locations and we’re excited about being the cornerstone of the Amsterdam area campus. We look forward to working together.”

At GUC Agency, campaigns, content, conversations and experiences all emerge from one big idea. GUC was formed by the merger in 2015 between Goud Activatie (focus on brand activation) and Uberconnected (social media agency). The company subsequently did strategic acquisitions and acquired Ice Media (digital), Redmint (retail) and DIFR (experiential). GUC is headquartered in Amsterdam and has an office in Lisbon, Portugal. The company employs over 100 creatives, designers, developers and brand strategists. GUC Agency works for large A-brands like Coop, Primera, Welkoop, Superunie, KPN, Klaverblad, Jacobs Douwe Egberts Professional, Universal en VANS.

Intracto, founded in 2005 by Pieter Janssens as a web development agency, has grown into a leading digital agency that helps shape the businesses of tomorrow in the areas of marketing, communication and technology. Intracto now employs over 700 people and has offices in Herentals (BE), Antwerp (BE), Mechelen (BE), ‘s-Hertogenbosch (NL), Tilburg (NL), Gorinchem (NL), Breda (NL), and Utrecht (NL). Intracto contributes to the business of national and international customers such as Knauf Insulation, Akzo Nobel, Canon, Alphabet, Michelin, Brussels Airport, Manna, Quick-Step, Torfs, MediaMarkt, Kom Op tegen Kanker, and Volvo.

At the end of 2018, Intracto welcomed Waterland, a renown private equity investor, as new co-shareholder to further grow the business nationally and internationally. Next to its healthy 30% growth per year, Intracto has initiated a buy-and-build strategy together with Waterland, which has a strong track record in realizing buy-and-builds.

Waterland is an independent private equity investment group that supports entrepreneurs in realizing their growth ambitions. With substantial financial resources and committed industry expertise, Waterland enables its portfolio companies to achieve accelerated growth both organically and through acquisitions. To date, Waterland has made investments in over 500 companies.

Waterland has offices in Belgium (Antwerp), the Netherlands (Bussum), UK (Manchester), Germany (Munich and Hamburg), Switzerland (Zurich), Denmark (Copenhagen) and Poland (Warsaw) and currently manages € 6 billion of investor commitments.

Intracto, one of the largest digital agencies in Belgium, has acquired brand activation agency GUC Agency. The strategic acquisition complements Intracto’s strong technical expertise in the area of (online) campaigns, creative concepting and social. The entire GUC Agency management will remain involved.

The acquisition perfectly fits in Intracto’s buy-and-build strategy that the company initiated together with its co-shareholder Waterland last year. Pieter Janssens, CEO of Intracto: “We are happy to welcome GUC Agency to our group. Historically, Intracto has a very strong technical background (i.e. web & app development, data analysis, online marketing), but the market and customer demand are changing rapidly. Advertising, marketing and IT are increasingly intertwined, and customers increasingly demand a holistic approach. This is why we have done strategic acquisitions in various fields of expertise in order to offer a full-service spectrum. As we speak, we are creating campuses in strategic locations housing all fields of expertise to fully unburden our customers. With GUC Agency, we are boosting our expertise in campaigns, (online) content and social. Moreover, we envision GUC Agency, which has ample room for further growth in its new office, to be our new Amsterdam area campus.”

 

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